1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal, and more particularly, to a mobile terminal in which a touch screen is installed in a front surface and a switching type keypad is installed at a rear surface.
2. Discussion of the Background
As information and communication technology and mobile terminal manufacturing technology has developed, various forms of mobile terminals have been introduced that can perform various applications and that can be easily carried. Such mobile terminals are manufactured in various forms such as a bar type, flip type having a cover, folder type, and slide type.
The mobile terminal may have a structure in which a keypad is disposed beneath a screen. Executing various application programs through the mobile terminal may be limited because the screen has a small size. For example, it may be inconvenient to view an image such as digital broadcasting, a movie, and a moving picture, or to view a document through the screen of the mobile terminal.
In order to solve such a problem, a mobile terminal having a touch screen that occupies most of a front surface (hereinafter, referred to as a ‘touch type mobile terminal’) has also been introduced. Most of the front surface of the touch type mobile terminal may be provided as a screen for displaying an image.
The touch type mobile terminal receives a user's selection signal through a touch of the touch screen, instead of through a physical keypad. The touch type mobile terminal assists a user's key input by displaying a virtual keypad on the touch screen.
However, because the touch type mobile terminal has no physical keypad, the touch type mobile terminal may be inconvenient when executing an application program such as character message writing and a game requiring many key inputs.
Because a keypad of a general mobile terminal or a virtual keypad of the touch type mobile terminal may be limited in size due to an image display area, when the keypad is embodied with a QWERTY key arrangement, it may be difficult for a user to use the keys of the keypad due to a small key size.